Work From Home Risks

Two in Five Brits Risk Their Personal Data During Work From Home

By accessing sensitive data from their personal computers and phones, remote workers may welcome cyber attackers to their devices while being shielded from coronavirus at their office.

This scenario applies to UK staff as well. Phishing scams are perpetrating rapidly along with the work from home risks.

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Employees Lack of Cybersecurity Knowledge

A recent study conducted by Fasthosts revealed that 2 out of 5 people in the UK have no specific and sufficient cybersecurity risks training. This means that while people work from their homes and use several video chat apps and file transfer platforms, they are not so informed about what they do.

The data shows that over half of the UK (54%) operates without a VPN, which is necessary web encryption that, while on a public WIFI, prevents personal and business data out of the public realm, such as those used in cafes, libraries and shared residences.

Over the past months, Kaspersky's analysis has validated this image for the whole world. Businesses need to ensure that their teams work as usual in this age of operating mainly from home. Ensuring employee cyber protection stands out as a concern.

It requires a lot of time to provide all the facilities teams need to perform their work safely. New threats are posed by teleworking, such as a spike in the number of spam and phishing attempts, access to compromised Wi-Fi hotspots, or the usage of shadow information systems by personnel. It was discovered that employers could not thoroughly clarify these risks to their workers in the survey done by 6,000 employees worldwide. 73 percent of the respondents reported that they did not undergo a cybersecurity awareness program after beginning to operate from home.

What's a Phishing Attack?

Phishing attacks are widely used to figure out the password, bank account, or credit card information of an individual. Specially planned by the intruder, a phishing email is perceived as originating from an official organization or a genuine email. Internet users are led to fraudulent websites and given their credentials with the advantage of customized email. On the other hand, the victims' devices could be intercepted because of running the files attached to these emails.

The attacker prepares a “bait” in phishing attacks, and this bait attempts to tie the victims to them. This is commonly generated in pay raises, gifts, free vacations, and cash incentives from enticing scenarios. To avoid severe damages against this sort of attack, which presents a significant risk to the organizations, it is essential to educate and train the institution's personnel.

Use a VPN for Remote Working Times

These days, VPNs are very common, but not for the reasons that they were initially conceived. Mainly, it was a means of interlinking business networks safely across the internet or enabling you from home to access a corporate network.

In reality, VPNs direct all network traffic to the network; this is where advantages come in, such as remotely accessing local network services and removing censorship of the Internet. Many operating systems provide integrated VPN support.

In very basic terms, VPN connects your PC, smartphone, or tablet somewhere on the internet to some other device (called a server) and helps you to surf the web using the Internet connection of that computer. So if the server is located in another country, it's going to look as if you're from another country and you can do things you can't usually do.

Meantime, this virtual private network created for you ensures your connection is secure and encrypted. That is why businesses should prefer using a VPN when giving access to company files and email systems. For your personal use as well, such as for personal email protection, e-commerce password protection, you can look at the extensive review on ExpressVPN to get a better idea of why you need to use VPN service.

With useful cybersecurity advice for companies and for workers who operate remotely and on their computers, it is possible to defend against cyber-attacks and become more aware of current risks on the web.

Working remotely can make it difficult for IT departments to track and take sufficient cybersecurity risks because they cannot always control every step an employee takes, such as opening email attachments.

Even companies use general firewall measures, access restrictions, and central antivirus programs, they won't be enough sometimes. Some emails can overcome the junk box criteria and pose a risk for users. That is why everyone should take personal measures and act responsibly while remote working.

If you feel a website might be suspicious, feel free to verify it using our unique Scam Detector website validator below:

How To Report a Scammer

You could also officially report scammers or any suspicious activity to the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) using the link below:

Report To The FTC Here

How To Protect Yourself More

If you want to find out the most prevalent scams weekly via email, make sure to subscribe to the Scam Detector newsletter. Meanwhile, educate yourself with some other cybersecurity-related articles under this paragraph. Feel free to, use the Comments section below to expose other scammers:

• How To Protect Yourself From Direct Deposit Scams
• Cybersecurity Measures You Should Take Now
• 7-Step Checklist for Cybersecurity